A tasty strawberry basil quinoa salad topped with goat cheese and sunflower seeds, and served with my absolute favorite lemon dressing. It’s slightly sweet and oh so fresh! You’ll love this as a healthy lunch, especially in the summer.
Course
Gluten Free, Lunch, Salad, Side Dish, Vegetarian
1/4cuproasted sunflower seeds (I buy mine from Trader Joe's)
4ouncescrumbled goat cheese
For lemon dressing:
2tablespoonsolive oil
1/4cupfreshly squeezed lemon juice
1clovegarlic, minced
1teaspoonhoney or sugar
1large basil leaf, chopped
1/8teaspoonsalt
fresh ground pepper, to taste
Instructions
To cook quinoa: Rinse quinoa with cold water in mesh strainer. In a medium saucepan, bring 1 ½ cups of water to a boil. Add in quinoa and bring mixture to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to low and let simmer for 15 minutes or until quinoa has absorbed all of the water. Remove from heat and fluff quinoa with fork; place in large bowl and set aside to cool for about 10 minutes. You should have a little over 2 cups of quinoa.
To make dressing: place olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, sugar/honey, basil, and salt in blender or food processor. Blend/process for 10-15 seconds; fold into quinoa.
Gently fold in strawberries and basil and any other add-ins you'd like such as chickpeas or chicken. Add salt or extra basil to taste. Place salad in refrigerator for few hours to let flavors marinate together. Once ready to serve, garnish salad with goat cheese, sunflower seeds and extra basil. I serve mine over a bed of spinach. Enjoy!